How The Snake Charmer Turned Me Into a Believer

“The serpent upheld GOD’S prohibition against eating from the Tree of Knowledge! It KNEW why God forbade it, for it POSSESSED his gifts!”

“Hallelujah!” believers chanted, dipping into their wallets.

“Upon thy belly shalt thou go,” the snake handler hissed later that night, introducing my zealous ass to his punishing rod, plowing it well with his serpent.

“I believe!” I cried, erupting.

If Moses’ staff had been this prodigious, I finally understood why all those people remained loyal in the barren desert and why God had given his magical rod an honored place in the Ark of the Covenant.